Finding Bigfoot
by SuperGroverAway
Summary: The twins reflect in the aftermath of their latest foray into the strange and unknown.


Besides the snap of twigs and the crunch of leaves underfoot, the twins walked through the lush evergreen woods in an absolute dead silence. Occasionally they would pass one another quick awkward glances. Other than that though, for a few minutes neither one uttered so much as a single sound.

Mabel of course could only take the reign of quiet for so long, and quickly reached her personal limits. Unable to bear it any more, she finally decided to break the silence with a cough and a meek opening remark. "So…that was definitely something, huh?"

Dipper kept his gaze locked straight ahead and nodded mutely. Clearly he wasn't in much of a mood to talk. However, his sister had made up her mind. The quiet was annoying, and she wasn't having any more of it.

"You know what? He was a little smaller that I thought he'd be." She continued, while together they climbed over a fallen tree lying in the middle of the path. "With the way the stories talked about it, you would have thought that he'd be more like a giant, or something. Orrrr…maybe _she_ would be more like a giant? I couldn't tell. What do you think? Was it a he? Or a she? He? Or a she?"

Her twin's lips remained tightly pursed as he followed her over the massive trunk, clambering to the other side only after enduring a small amount of difficulty. Patiently she waited, and once he rejoined her she gave him a soft poke in the side. "Dipper? What do you think?"

"Dunno." He finally answered. The snappiness in his tone didn't deter her for an instant, she struck up fresh conversation the moment they carried on their way.

"Hard to guess, right? I think that's because it was so hairy. Like, even hairier than Grunkle Stan! And he looks like someone glued a bath mat to his chest!" She shook her head with genuine amazement, and even allowed herself a giggle.

"Yeah. Real hairy." Again he solemnly answered back only with the absolute bare minimum of effort. Mabel twirled a tress of chocolate-brown hair and continued to reflect on their latest encounter with the abnormal.

"Hey, you know what was kind of a letdown?" The girl paused briefly to watch a hawk soar overhead. "Everyone calls it a Bigfoot, right? Lazy Susan, Old Man McGucket, Grunkle Stan...like, everyone! Even your weird journal uses that name, and that's the number one source on crazy stuff around here. But you know what _I_ think?"

A huff from Dipper signaled that he couldn't care less. Of course that didn't stop her from voicing her firmly held opinion on the matter. "_I_ don't think its feet were really that big! I mean, they were sort of big. But they weren't like, ridiculously crazy super-big. You'd think with a name like that it'd be walking around on absolutely gi-normous feet. You know, like this!"

For several paces she stomped as hard as she could, and made sure to add some booming sound effects to the display.

"Mabel…" Dipper groaned, but she absolutely refused to be silenced now that she felt like there was a valuable point to be made.

"Now that I think about it, it wasn't a letdown. It was almost like a rip-off, actually." She groused, now sounding a little cheated. "Its feet were bigger than ours, but that's only because it was already like, seven feet tall. I've seen stuff with bigger feet. So why does it get to be called 'Bigfoot' then? Huh? That's not really fair."

"I. Don't. Care." The boy rolled his eyes and declared bluntly.

"People really just aren't that creative sometimes. Now, if I was the first one to discover it, I wouldn't have named it Bigfoot." She speculated. "Nope! I would have named it something like…hmm...the American Forest Gorilla, or...maybe Harry, because of all the hair...no, wait! The Snorggus!"

Mabel added a skip to her step awhile she started to excitedly elaborate. "Yeah, that's a much better name, right? Instead of 'Bigfoot' this, or 'Bigfoot that,' it would be 'Oh no, the Snorggus is coming! I hear it!' or, "Hey, what are these weird footprints? Oh, those are Snorggus footprints!' Kinda rolls off the tongue, right?"

Dipper's current mood was already rotten to begin with. Her incessant prattling wasn't doing it any favors at all. As she worked his last nerve, he bared his teeth and gave his gabby sibling a dark scowl . "Mabel, can you just sh-"

He was cut off in mid-growl by a sudden stumble. Dipper yelped hoarsely as he lost his balance. Before he could flop face first onto the forest floor, his sister caught him in the nick of time. Moving fast, Mabel gently righted him back onto his feet with a fat smile and a comforting pat on the back.

"Gotcha!" The girl whooped triumphantly.

"Uh…thanks." His previous aggravation was almost instantly defused. The boy had to admit, he couldn't stay too sour in the presence of such helpful cheer, and he gave her a wan smile. "Sorry. It's kind of hard walking in…y'know…"

Dipper nodded to the curious improvised garb. At least her borrowed sweater was keeping him fully covered below, and preventing the world from catching a full view of his Kermit the frog boxer shorts. On the other hand though, as the woolen neck stretched tightly around his waist, it looked like he was wearing a very peculiar skirt, and that fact of course wasn't easy to bear at the moment.

"It's okay! I'm helping!" Mabel happily announced, right before a burst of giggles spilled out. It was hard to tell whether she was laughing with pride over her clever solution, or over just how absurd her twin currently looked. Knowing her, it was probably both at once.

"C'mon. We're almost there." Dipper coughed nervously. He was justifiably feeling very eager to get back to the Shack as they possibly could. Together they struck out and continued on their. As Mabel trotted along at he brother's side, she waited a little until finally approaching the mystery that had been burning intensely on her mind for the last fifteen minutes.

"...Do you think you know idea why it wanted to steal your shorts so badly?" She pried. Her brother swept a cautious glance behind his shoulder, just in case a certain legendary creature was trailing them.

"Honestly, I'd rather not think about it. The more I do, the more it just kinda creeps me out..."


End file.
